1. Field
The present disclosure relates generally to vehicles and in particular to a method and apparatus for generating routes for a vehicle. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to a computer implemented method, apparatus, and computer usable program code for routing a rover with energy management.
2. Background
Future robotic and/or manned space exploration programs seek to place a rover on the moon to explore regions of scientific and commercial interest. A rover is a space exploration vehicle designed to move across the surface of a planet or other astronomical body. Rovers may be fully autonomous vehicles, partially autonomous vehicles, or fully under the control of a human operator. These regions may include, for example, areas with hydrogen concentration, water and polar regions, and areas with concentrations with helium-3. Rovers, in this type of environment, require near real time automated mission planning and support capability to plan routes across the lunar terrain.
A number of different factors are present with respect to the movement of a rover on a lunar surface. These characteristics include the impact of lunar terrain grade and surface material and the effect of the traction of the rover and energy consumption. Further, a need is present to maintain some level of solar exposure on the rover.
Solar exposure may be used by rovers with solar arrays for power cells to generate energy. This solar exposure also may be needed for thermal control of electronics and other devices. Another factor is a rover may need to maintain a line of sight communication with various nodes and may need to manage times in shadow regions where low temperatures may adversely impact rover performance.
Some routing tools are currently present for rovers. Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) research center that has routing tools. Some of these tools use large-scale lunar information system (LIS) digital terrain database data for routing. This type of routing tool is specifically designed for small rovers, which may traverse over relatively short distances. The routing system by Jet Propulsion Laboratory is designed for a tactical, highly accurate exploration of a small area of terrain in which precision relocation is key to the movement of the rover. This type of routing process involves careful preplanning to accomplish these movements.
Other types of routing or navigation systems may use active optical systems, such as lasers, to detect obstacles in the path of the rover and re-route the rover on the fly. These types of solutions, however, are built for low-speed, short-distance rovers that typically use cameras to determine small-distance way points. These types of tools, however, do not overcome the different problems involved with moving rovers over longer distances.
Therefore, it would be advantageous to have a method, apparatus, and computer usable program code to overcome the problems discussed above, as well as possible other problems.